The Threat List

Status:Conflict

GlobalConflictNews-derivedlow confidenceSourcing reviewed 2026-09-12

Private Military Groups

Private military groups and contractors operate in armed conflicts, creating risks to civilians, accountability, governance, and contractor personnel. The supplied evidence documents contractor deaths but does not support a global estimate of civilian harm, displacement, affected populations, economic losses, or environmental damage attributable specifically to these groups.

Severity score

35.8

Serious · default weighting

Trajectory

Steady

How this is ranked

What this is

Score breakdown

Each factor is a 0–100 relative severity index, not the raw figure or a specific time period. The actual counts and periods are listed under "Standardized Impact" on the right.

Loss of life

35

Direct and attributable mortality, normalised across annual and cumulative tolls.

Lives negatively impacted

38

People displaced, injured, food-insecure, exposed or otherwise materially harmed.

Financial cost

40

Direct damage, lost output and health-system spend attributable to the event.

Environmental impact

15

Emissions, habitat and biodiversity loss, contamination and irreversibility.

Trajectory

55

Whether the situation is escalating, and how much worse it is plausibly getting.

Audit trail

Everything this entry has been through — when it was first searched for, queued, reviewed and approved, and how its figures and rank have moved since.

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